If you’re serious about being prepared, there are a number of items that you need to stock up on. Food and water generally come at the top of the list, but medical care shouldn’t be neglected.
Hopefully you have at least basic first aid equipment available, even if it isn’t all packaged together in a first aid kit. And if you’re really serious, you’ll put together a more complete medical kit, with more advanced equipment to face the eventualities you might come across, from gunshot wounds to car accidents to broken limbs.
Your basic first aid kit, or boo-boo kit, will be the one that contains your gauze, bandages, basic medication, and things like shears, tweezers, and other things to help you heal small cuts and lacerations. Your more advanced kit, or trauma kit, will help stabilize broken limbs, deal with gunshot wounds, car accidents, and the like. This is where you’ll have chest seals, tourniquets, blood clotting agents, etc.
But there are some other items that you might want to include in your medical supplies that you might not think about. Apartment Prepper has a list of 10 unusual items that you might want to think about including in your medical gear, including eyeglasses, liquid bandages, rubbing alcohol, and duct tape.
That list should get you thinking about what other types of items you might want to include in your medical kits. It’s always better to be overprepared than underprepared, to have things and not need them rather than to need them and not have them.
And as always, no matter what gear you have, it’s not going to be nearly as effective for you if you don’t get training. Get certified in CPR, learn how to stop bleeding, and learn how to identify and provide initial care for heart attacks, strokes, and other common medical issues. Having a bunch of stuff and not knowing how to use it doesn’t do anyone any good.